September In The Rain

The grey skies and driving rain splattering through the yellow leaves outside my window today remind me of a song I heard last week - and old, old song by Frank Sinatra with such melancholy words and such a sad, sad feeling to it. I thought I'd share and put you all in the same grey-day feeling. :)

September In The Rain

The leaves of brown came tumbling,

remember?

In September, in the rain.

To every word of love I heard you whisper,

the raindrops seemed to play a sweet refrain;

the sun went out just like a dying ember,

that September,

in the rain.

Though spring is here, 

to me it's still September - 

that September -

in the rain.

Songs like that always make me wonder about the stories behind them. To me this one speaks of a young woman, standing under a tree on a dark street with the sky heavy and grey above her and the rain falling around her and a single street lamp shining a golden glow on her face. And she's just standing there, thinking about her fiancee who is "somewhere over there" fighting in the war and remembering the last time she had seen him - which could be the last time she ever would.  

I hope you feel properly melancholy now!

'Till next time,

Love Like That

I've been thinking about posting this for a while, but haven't had the time or the words to do it. Now I'm free and I might as well give a stab at getting it down in a semi-readable, semi-understandable way. 

We'll see...

To begin, a little background : 

It's no secret, I guess, that for almost eighteen years, I've been wondering how on earth all my friends have been able to say "Oh, I'm SO in love with God!". And they are. I can see it. But for me, it's always been a struggle. 

I've been a Christian since I could understand what being a Christian was about. I've taught Bible clubs and Sunday School and VBS. I've mentored friends and sisters. I've done countless Bible studies and devotions. I've read books and pored over my Bible. I've been memorizing Scripture since I could read it. And I've prayed again and again for God to open up my eyes to His love - and nothing ever happened. I began to feel like this was it. There wasn't ever going to be that exhilarating knowledge of God's love for me. It was always just going to be an endless drone of "Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins because He loved us so much." 

I'd heard that so many times it lost its meaning. 

I was starting to lose hope when journal after journal was blotted with frustrated rants at God because He wasn't showing me the real meaning behind His death and how I couldn't grasp the meaning of the verses that said that "God's love is unfailing" and "For God so loved the world" and so on and so forth. I felt trapped when year after year passed and I still seemed stuck at the same bland plateau that I had always been on - inches away from grasping the true meaning of my faith and yet still falling short of feeling God's love wrap around me. 

I started giving up because I figured that maybe this was reality and no one really "fell in love with God" and they were just pretending to look like good little Christians. I wrote a letter to a friend once and said that I had realized that this was how it was going to be for me. I wouldn't ever have that heady experience of God's love; instead I would have just a steady knowledge of the love that Scripture assured me was there. 

But as that sank in, I realized that it wasn't enough. If other people had this exhilaration, I wanted it to. But I couldn't figure out how to grasp it and hold it. There were moments, yes, when I knew without a doubt that God loved me and my heart would jump and I would laugh with pure joy. But those moments were few and far between and they didn't satisfy the hunger I felt to know God and fall securely in His unfailing love.  

So I kept stumbling and praying and crying out to God that it wasn't fair and that I didn't understand and that I needed His help. 

But, as usual, nothing came. 

I grasped at solutions that didn't work, I tried this and that and the next thing, I delved into every single idea I could think of that would force me to open up my eyes to God's love and none of them worked. I was right back where I started. 

Frustrated, discouraged, and helpless. 

And then I started a course of joy. Through the writing of Ann Voskamp, in her book One Thousand Gifts (which I have referred to many times lately :D), I began to realize that thankfulness was the only way to fully realize God's love because that is how He shows His love to us anyway. Through the gifts He pours out on us every day. 

I started (ok, I attempted to start - it's really difficult to change old habits and start thanking God for everything!) the list of one thousand gifts and that didn't go to well (I'm still going at it, but one thousand is a looong way off  :-/ ) but another thing that did go better was that I started reading the Bible in a different way. 

Instead of just reading to read, I started paying attention to what I was reading and made more of an attempt to understand the meaning of what I was reading. I was amazed at what I found.

One verse especially hit me. 

Psalm 50:23 - He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.

It was exactly what I wanted. To be shown the salvation of God. To know and fully realize why He died on that cross besides the Sunday School pat answer "to save us from our sins". 

I wanted to know why He cared that we were saved, why He went through the suffering and rose from the dead, why it made any difference to Him that we went to heaven instead of hell. I had a hundred whys and no answers. So I figured that I would prepare the way for God to show me the meaning of His salvation. 

I sacrificed thank offerings in the form of prayer and praise. And I know that makes me sound really holy and all that, but, to be honest, I still forgot to thank Him over and over. 

Praise God for His forgiving spirit...

The answer came with swiftness that knocked me off my spiritual feet. 

He showed it to me in Hebrews 12.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

I had read and heard this verse a million times (exaggeration added) and I had never seen the answer to my questions buried inside it. 

Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross...

It all sort of dawned on me in an instant. One of those flashes when suddenly you realize how stupid you've been. Or, as my friend says, "a real "duh" moment".

Jesus died so that we could be forgiven, yes. But there was another reason. A much bigger reason. 

The joy. 

The joy set before Him. What He was looking forward to. 

And that was the sin barrier crashing down so that He could enjoy real communion with us. So that we could draw near to Him without our sin getting in the way and spoiling the sweetness of the relationship He longs to have with us. 

And when I realized that, I realized the worth I have to God. I'm not just one of the millions whose sins were forgiven by His blood. I'm a personal reason for His death. For the joy of communion with me, He suffered and died. 

And that's a humbling and honoring thought at the same time. 

And it makes all the difference in my view of God. 

That He died for the joy of a relationship with me. That that was the joy set before Him that He died to gain. 

Just thinking about it makes me feel so incredibly small and yet so incredibly awed. 

The King of Heaven died for the joy of drawing me near to Him. 

Where else can you find love like that?

'Till next time,

Week in Review

Sweet mother of mercy; I survived!

Four days of clinicals are in my past and I can now stay up later than 9:30 and turn off my 5 a.m. alarm.

Such luxury.

And just when I was getting used to these hours...

Truly though, I'm very satisfied. I am eons more confident about the vocation and though nursing home care is probably not what I want to go into, I've realized that I do enjoy the job (though how those overworked CNAs manage nine or ten residents in the morning is quite beyond my comprehension).

I suppose I could do a rundown of how I spent those eight hours every day, but my journal was already bored by that. I'll just do some highlights.

Monday: when the resident I was caring for told herself over and over where I was so that she could tell me when I got back that she remembered where I had gone. She really was a dear; winking and smiling and waving at me. :)

Tuesday: when one of the residents at my table at lunch gave me one of her birthday cookies after we sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She was so sweet about it.

Wednesday: when the usually ornery resident that I was assigned to with my partner was an angel the whole shift and I got a chance to become more proficient in the use of mechanical lifts and take on more of a responsibility role with a complete assist resident who couldn't walk.

When I had an opportunity to follow a CNA around and help with her tasks and chat with her, which, in turn gave me many experiences that I would otherwise have missed.

When I got to play my flute for the residents at lunch. :)


Thursday: my partner and I were able to care for two residents and get them both to breakfast on time. I was able to dress a patient completely on my own and get a few more experiences that I really wanted to practice.

When one of the patients on the Alzheimer's floor told me that she enjoyed talking to me because I had "some brains". I'm still not sure if I should regard it as a compliment or an insult... Lol.

So that pretty much sums up my week! I'm going to relax tonight with my brother's birthday meal and Arsenic and Old Lace.

'Till next time,